


The Importance of Proofreading: or Four Times Autocorrect Failed Leopold Fitz, and One Time it Didn’t

by Pocketfullof



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Actually so does Jemma, F/M, Fitz needs to learn how to text, Leo Fitz-centric, Less Than 5K, Less Than 5k Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4213419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pocketfullof/pseuds/Pocketfullof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the More Than That, Less Than 5K Gift Exchange at TheFitzSimmonsNetwork, for OtherPartyFavors. </p>
<p>The prompt: “Nothing good comes from autocorrect.”  A bit of a random AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Importance of Proofreading: or Four Times Autocorrect Failed Leopold Fitz, and One Time it Didn’t

**Author's Note:**

  * For [otherpartyfavors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherpartyfavors/gifts).



1\. 

Leopold Fitz was having a not uncomplicated day. He had spilled his steaming Earl Grey – two sugars and loads of milk – down the front of his favorite shirt this morning, which in turn made him late for a meeting, where he learned that the mechanical design for his ALIEN (Automatic Landing and Incapacitating Encoding Node) had malfunctioned for the third time this month. 

This last bit had earned him a load of shouting from his rotund and fuchsia-faced employer. When Fitz tried to explain that it was most likely a user error on the part of said boss, the shouting got louder. And there was spit involved. And it lasted a very long time. 

Between the yelling and then the fixing, he was late getting out of the lab, which made him extra late for his anniversary dinner with Maria, who – truth be told – did not like to be kept waiting, and – if Fitz were being honest – waited an awful lot for him. 

She had already sent two pictures to his mobile. The first, messaged two hours ago (and twenty minutes after he told her he’d be home), was of her in a lacy red thing that made his eyes nearly pop out of his head. The second, sent just two minutes ago, was of her in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, hair pulled back and a frown fixed to her scowling face. 

At the time, Fitz had been juggling a stuffed monkey, a dozen roses, a heart-shaped box of candy, a Hallmark card, and a pen, along with his car keys. He tucked the candy, the roses, and the card under his arm, the pen between his teeth, and kept a firm hold on the plush monkey, all the while walking and typing: _Be warned, I’m jumping you when I get home tonight. Which is in five minutes._

Not ten seconds later his phone buzzed. _Fine with me_ , he read. _I was just thinking we could use some time apart._

The pen fell out of his mouth. “What. The. _Hell_.” 

He gaze jumped back to his previous text.

Everything came toppling out of his arms as his eyes widened in horror. 

_No. No. No. JUMPING. Not dumping. I meant to write jumping_. He couldn’t seem to press the send button fast enough. 

Twenty seconds went by. 

Then thirty. 

After a full ninety seconds, which consisted of Fitz staring open-mouthed at his phone with his romantic purchases spilled on the ground beside him, he typed: _Are you telling me you want to end it????_

His phone buzzed again. _Well_ , Maria had typed. _This just got awkward_. 

Fitz sat down in the car park beside his driver-side door, pulled the monkey to his lap, and opened up the heart-shaped box of chocolate. Biting viscously into the sugary mass of candy, he cursed the person who invented autocorrect. 

 

2

In an effort to remain not homeless when Maria kicked him out of their apartment, Fitz bummed a spot on Hunter’s couch until he could no longer take the daily shouting matches that made up the bulk of Lance and Bobbie’s relationship. As luck would have it, Skye had just dumped Miles due to the fact that he was a “greedy, freeloading bastard whose only redeeming quality were his fingers, ” (“Because he’s a good hacker. Y’ know, he can type really fast,” Skye had qualified when Fitz choked on his beer) so Fitz moved in with her as soon as humanly possible. 

Now, though, Fitz thought Hunter’s lumpy couch would be preferable to living with a girl who loved A) hacking, B) pranking, and C) making Fitz squirm. 

He grimaced at his phone and the message it just sent to Lorelei, the cute new lab technician who he was 68% sure had been flirting with him yesterday. Fitz closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he threw open the door. 

“I pee my trousers!” he yelled shrilly as he stormed into the flat. “I can’t believe you would put that in… in… my… mobile….”

“Hey, Fitz,” Skye said around a toothy grin. She nodded her head to the girl perched beside her on the sofa, who stared over at him in wide-eyed horror. “This is our new neighbor, Jemma.”

Fitz didn’t think that teleportation technology actually existed yet, which was a shame, because he would like nothing more than to be elsewhere, like, immediately. 

He gaped at the pretty girl’s – Jemma’s – face, feeling the tips of his ears go pink. Skye and Jemma looked back at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to speak. 

Outside, a horn honked. Inside, the silence was broken only by the sound of the air conditioner as it kicked on. Fitz reckoned courtesy dictated he say _hello_ or _how are you_ or _would you like to marry me_ , but embarrassment had clamped his mouth shut. 

“We met in the lift,” Jemma explained in the awkward silence that stretched around the flat. She tucked a strand of shiny brown hair behind her ear. 

Fitz nodded dumbly. 

Skye sat beside Jemma, a Chesire-cat smile on her face. She waggled her eyebrows at Fitz. “Jemma’s a scientist, too, Leo. Isn’t that great?” 

Fitz’s brain finally clicked back on. He pressed his lips together into a line and held his phone up. “Not funny,” he said. 

Skye collapsed into a fit of giggles. “Totally disagree, Fitz.” At Jemma’s confused look, Skye explained: “I autocorrected his phone to replace ‘I’ with ‘My name is Leopold and I pee my pants’.” 

Jemma let out a small snort, though she did give Fitz a reassuring smile. 

Fitz returned it with a wobbly grin of his own. He swallowed. “You’re a menace,” he said to Skye. 

“You used the last of my papaya shampoo, Fitz, for the third time. I warned you there would be consequences.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s not that big of a deal. The only people you text are Hunter ‘n Mack anyway.”

“No,” Fitz protested. “It was – .”

“Who?”

Fitz glanced at Jemma, suddenly unwilling to divulge the fact that he was 53% sure he’d dabbled in workplace flirtation. “Just someone from work,” he mumbled. 

“A _girl_ someone from work?” Skye guessed while Jemma asked, “Oh, where do you work?”

All he really wanted was for the earth to swallow him whole so he could get away from pretty-scientist-neighbor Jemma, who was looking at him with a mixture of pity and amusement in her bright eyes. 

Instead, Fitz groaned and sank into the chair beside the door. He really hated autocorrect. 

 

3

 

Fitz paced back and forth across his bedroom floor, making figure eights around piles of unwashed clothes and the stacks of papers that never made their way into his dustbin. He had Jemma Simmons’s number programmed into his phone and was intent on composing history’s most perfect first text message. 

After last night’s disastrous introduction, things had picked up. 

He’d ignored Skye’s question about whom he was texting in favor of answering Jemma. “I work at Cybertech.” 

A light had come into her eyes. “Oh! I interviewed with them when I first moved here last month, but then S.H.I.E.L.D. offered me my own lab, so I - .”

“You work for S.H.I.E.L.D. ?” Fitz had leaned forward in his chair, all humiliation forgotten. “I’ve been trying to get in there for months.”

“What do you work with? Maybe I can put in a good word.”

“Engineering, well, my degrees are in Aeronautics and Astrodynamics, but – “

“Really? Oh, that’s fascinating. I took a seminar on Astrodynamics while I was finishing up at Cambridge a few years ago, and – .”

“Did you take it with Keonig?”

“Yes. He was a bit distracting, actually, the way he always – “

“Clicks his tongue? I’ve heard him lecture a couple times and it’s always so -.”

“Ahem!” 

Fitz had turned at the sound and jumped to see that Skye had moved from her position on the sofa to stand beside him. She’d handed Fitz his phone. “I fixed this for you.” 

“Oh,” Fitz had said, taking it from her. There had been three missed messages from Lorelei. He put the phone facedown on the coffee table. “Thanks.”

Skye looked him in the eye and then flitted her gaze to Jemma. “You’re welcome,” she said. “Buy your own shampoo,” she’d warned, and she’d sniffed. “You smell like a girl.”

“I think papaya smells wonderful,” Jemma had said from across the room. She had leaned forward to rest her elbow on the sofa arm, chin propped in her hand, and a smile showing white, straight teeth gracing her face. Fitz couldn't help the dopey grin that sprang onto his face like it was spring-loaded. 

Later, Jemma had programmed her number into his mobile with the promise of introducing him to people at S.H.I.E.L.D. 

That had been three days ago. 

Fitz had been trying to come up with what to say to her ever since. He didn’t want to call; that would seem too forward. He needed a text that conveyed his intelligence – a Ph.D. by the age of seventeen, thankyouverymuch – and his professionalism, along with his gratitude for her offer to help secure a position at S.H.I.E.L.D. If the text also conveyed that he was both suave and sophisticated, and could be charming in an awkward sort of way, all the better. 

He marched to his desk, where he had scribbled paragraph after crossed out paragraph, all drafts that weren’t good enough. He sighed and found the most recent. Better to just go for it! 

_Hey, Jemma. It was an honor to meet you_ , he began. Finally, after the nearly fifty-word message was typed, Fitz hit send. He started pacing again. 

Five minutes went by without her response. 

It was fine. She was probably busy. Loads of work to do. A big social life. Maybe a boyfriend. Probably a big, beefy type with too many teeth. Someone who went by the name Chip or Hank. 

Fitz needed a beer. He yanked open his bedroom door, eyes still trained on his mobile, just as the door to the flat opened. Skye walked in, followed by Jemma.

“Oh, hey,” Skye said when she saw him. “I just ran into Jemma. We were thinking of going to get some lunch. You hungry?”

Quickly, Fitz shoved his phone into his pocket. Jemma hadn’t seen him yet. She was rummaging around in her purse, pulling out her phone. She finally looked up with a smile. “I just received a text from you, Fitz.”

“Oh,” said Fitz. “Right. Yeah, um, right.”

Jemma was looking at her phone. Her eyes narrowed. “It was a horror to meet you,” she read aloud. 

Fitz shook his head. “What? No! That’s no’ what I said.”

Jemma held out her mobile for Skye to see. “That’s what it says.”

Fitz groaned. “I was supposed to be ‘honor’. It was an _honor_ to meet you.”

Skye made a noise. “I don’t think that’s much better, actually. ‘It was an honor to meet you.’ Who talks like that?”

Glaring at Skye, Fitz said, “Thanks for the lunch offer, but I have important things to do.” He gestured behind him to his bedroom. “In. There.”

When Fitz shut the door, he swore he heard the words ‘weirdo’ and ‘nerd’ come out of Skye’s mouth. He fell onto his bed face forward and slammed his forehead repeatedly into his pillow. 

Autocorrect was going to ruin his life. 

 

4

Despite the _horror_ – Fitz groaned internally at the word – that was the first text he’d ever sent to Jemma Simmons, he still managed to snag a happy hour invitation with some of her coworkers for the following Friday. He donned a button down shirt and tie, and ironed his trousers. All of this was simply to look professional, of course. And if the shirt was the periwinkle one that his mum sent for his birthday with a note that mentioned it’d bring out his eyes, well, that was only because it was clean and well-starched and hanging toward the front of his closet. 

All in all, the evening had been a success. The two beers he’d downed had lubricated him enough to network effectively without feeling like a total berk. It helped that Jemma barely left his side. She’d introduced him to a coworker of hers, Antoine Triplet, who everyone else called Tripp, and who teased Jemma about the dimple in her left cheek when she smiled brightly. Fitz had felt something irritatingly close to jealousy curl through his stomach watching Jemma laugh and duck her head at that. The feeling faded when she’d grinned at Fitz and touched his wrist with her soft, dry fingers to point out the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Phil Coulson. She’d even secured Fitz a coffee sit down with the head of H.R.: Melinda May. 

By the end of the event, Fitz was worried it looked like he had hearts in his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the gaze of adoration that formed on his face every time he glanced over at Jemma. She had stayed at the bar with him after everyone else left to offer tips on how to impress Ms. May. They’d had a few more drinks, and by the time Fitz had walked into his flat, after leaving Jemma at her door, he was feeling more than a little star struck. 

Perhaps it had been the six drinks, or maybe it was the memory of Jemma’s soft hands and the seven times she’d reached out to touch him during the night, but when his mobile buzzed with her message that she had a good time that evening, Fitz couldn’t help the reply: _Me too. When can we do it again? I can’t wait to see that dimple of yours again._

Then he’d promptly fallen asleep, thoughts of bright smiles and soft hands on his mind. 

He woke up at four O’clock in the morning to a mouth so dry it felt filled with cotton balls. He was still dressed in his shirt and trousers from the earlier evening. After a trip to the kitchen to chug a huge glass of water, Fitz wandered back to his bedroom, stopping to strip off his clothes before falling back into bed. His phone was face down beside his pillow. 

He had a vague memory of texting when he got home. He picked up the mobile. Sure enough, there was a message from Jemma waiting for him. _Well, that’s a bit forward. Don’t you think we should at least get dinner first?_

Fitz shut his eyes, dread sliding like ice through his veins. What had he typed? He didn’t even want to look at his phone. He shouldn’t be allowed to text anymore. 

Cringing, he finally turned his attention to the text he’d sent before falling asleep. There was Jemma’s _I had a great time tonight_ , followed by his _Me too. When can we do it again?_

Not the end of the world. Not even that forward, really. Fitz ran his thumb along the phone screen, scrolling down to his next text. He swore. Loudly. 

_I can’t wait to see that nipple of yours again._

“Bloody hell.”

Fitz was briefly distracted by the thought of Jemma’s breasts before his confusion kicked in, and he was left wondering what he’d actually intended to type. Nipple… Pimple? Dimple! Tripp had been teasing Jemma about her dimple. 

Fitz stared into the dark of his room. Even alone in the dim light coming from his phone, he could feel himself blush hotly. Dimple? Ugh. What was he thinking? 

Maybe he could get Skye to lock his text messages for him. He was clearly just as much of a menace as she was. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was beginning to form behind his eyes. 

Eventually, he typed. _I think my mobile hates me,_ he wrote. _That was not what I meant to send. I’m gonna toss it in the rubbish and become a luddite._ And then, slightly belated: _I’m sorry_. 

He lay back down, not expecting a reply at 4:15 on a Saturday morning, though he maintained a steady grip on the mobile. He was still awake when the birds began their altogether-too-chipper twitters outside his bedroom window. 

Autocorrect was literally the worst thing ever. 

5

With a pillow smashed over his head, Fitz was just finally drifting into a light sleep when his phone announced a text. Groggily, he pressed on his mobile to read the time: 7:37. 

Jemm’s name buzzed onto his screen. Fitz thought briefly about ignoring it in favor of more sleep, but he knew it would be futile; there was no way he could ignore the anxiety stirring inside of him.

He swiped his phone all the way on. The little grey bubble with Jemma’s newly-sent text said: _My boyfriend, it’s really okay. I assumed it was an autocorrect mistake. I was only teasing._

Fitz thought he might still be asleep. He blinked against the sunlight currently assaulting his eyeballs. Had she just typed – 

Another message appeared. _Wait – not my boyfriend. I meant to type my boyfriend._

Fitz was nothing if not quick on the uptake. He chuckled low in his throat, a pretty good notion of who was behind this prank. His phone buzzed again. 

_LEO_ , Jemma typed. Even through the mobile, her desperation was evident. Having been a victim of Skye’s pranks, Fitz was very sympathetic. He continued reading: _Every time I type F I T Z it changes it to my boyfriend._

Flipping onto his stomach, elbows braced on his mattress, Fitz typed: _I reckon that’s the most perfect roommate/matchmaker’s handiwork._

He looked down at the message he’d just sent and sighed heavily. _I meant S K Y E_ , he typed. _Her handiwork. Her real name is Mary Sue Poots, by the way,_ he added. 

Five minutes passed. Fitz wondered if perhaps Jemma had fallen back asleep when his phone went off. 

He glanced down. _So, would you like to? With me?_

A grin tugged at his lips. _Be your boyfriend?_ he teased. He typed again, debating for half a second before pressing send. _Or see your nipple(s)? That’s a little forward, don’t you think? Maybe we should start with dinner._

Fitz held his breath, wondering if he’d gone too far. 

Twenty seconds went by.

Then thirty. 

Finally, Jemma’s reply came through: _Or we could start with breakfast…._

_I could eat now._

_I can make pancakes._

_I’ll be over in ten._

_Great. See you then, my boyfriend._

Fitz’s laughter rang out in his empty bedroom.

Maybe autocorrect wasn’t that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> And they live happily ever after. The end. 
> 
> This was my first FitzSimmons fic, and the first fanfiction I’ve written in five years (really, I checked. The last was April, 2010), so I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a tad rusty. I also hope you’ll forgive the almost generic AU thing going on here. And the fact that this is un-beta’d. If you do see any mistakes, feel free to point them out to me; sadly, I cannot blame them on autocorrect. 
> 
> Most of the autocorrect mistakes (sections 1, 3 & 4) were modified from allegedly true text messages posted at Damn You Autocorrect, which is a joy to read, though perhaps not when you’re trying to ingest anything (lest it end up all over your computer screen).


End file.
